The holiday season is the time to unleash an annual barrage of seemingly endless productions of The Nutcracker ballet, courtesy of Russian composer Tchaikovsky. The Nutcracker has long been a staple of the Christmas season - - like uneaten fruitcakes and stale candy canes. Every wannabe dancer who can don a tutu and maintain a vertical position somehow manages to land a role in the The Nutcracker. The sheer amount of holiday productions is staggering - - from backyard regional poverty row performances to big city lavish extravaganzas.
Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love The Nutcracker. It contains some of the most delightful holiday music ever written. I never tire of it no matter how many times I've seen it - - but it has been done to death in more rancid productions than anyone cares to remember. Many performances seem merely obligatory, with no sense of style or imagination. The dancers mime their way through the synthetic snow with less enthusiasm than somnambulists.
In truth, despite the deliciously delightful musical score, there's not very much for the principal dancers to do. It's all visually pleasing, but you won't see any breathtaking balletic feats - - like the 32 fouettes that Odile sweats out in Swan Lake.
Fortunately, the music more than compensates for sparse virtuoso footwork. Tchaikovsky perfectly captures the magical spirit of Christmas Eve and the spectacular journey into a snow-drifted candyland dreamscape.
There are rare exceptions to mediocre productions. The 1989 Bolshoi production with revised choreography by Yuri Grigorovich is superb - - as are the principal dancers Irek Mukhamedov and Natalya Arkhipova.
I know the music by heart, having once been a ballet rehearsal pianist in L.A. I still have the musical score and still occasionally play the entire ballet on the piano. My cats are my sole audience and they refuse to dance.
Gelsey Kirkland in her luscious prime
The best Nutcracker that I've seen recently is Helgi Tomasson's production with the San Francisco Ballet, which aired on PBS a few years ago.
A photo of the original 1892 production of The Nutcracker.
Some
of these "snowflakes" look slightly past their
prime, and probably consumed too much bread with their borscht.
My own personal theory is that, after sitting through a tedious opera, the audience was less than enthusiastic about sitting through an entire ballet. But it's only a theory.
Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Tchaikovsky wasn't initially pleased with The Nutcracker, either. He felt that his two previous ballets - Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty - were far superior. In a technical sense, he was correct. He also thought that his creative abilities had fizzled. That's where he was wrong. The popularity of The Nutcracker has steadily increased through the years. The timeless enchanting music is synonymous with the holiday season and is endeared by balletomanes and non-ballet enthusiasts alike.
Jon
2019
And by children everywhere. Interesting take on Tchaikovsky's initial disappointment. I hope he lived long enough to laugh all the way to the bank.
ReplyDeletePS - Unfortunately, I never saw a live stage production. Perhaps I should put that on my 'before I die' list?
Unfortunately, Tchaikovsky died less than a year after the first performance of "The Nutcracker" and never knew of its later enormous success.
DeleteSeeing a live performance of a ballet makes all the difference - - it's MUCH better than watching it on a restrictive TV screen.
I have never been to a performance of the nutcracker. The nearest one is about 3 hours away which is doable but no one wants to go and see it with me...poor poor me! haha!
ReplyDeleteThree hours is a long drive. It would probably be much more enjoyable if you lived closer. But, heck - perhaps one day you can go solo, just for the adventure...
DeleteSaw the Nutcracker once, when Cheryl and I were still dating. I was totally thrilled we were going to go to something with "culture". However, what you said was correct. I loved the music, but had never seen ballet dancing of any kind LIVE. That was possibly the worst way to see it. I still remember this one thing that surprised me. Ballet Dancers fall HARD on the stage when they too those little jumps. It sounded like someone was dropping sacks of grain on the stage every time one of the "lighter than air dancers" landed. I have never seen a live Ballet since. The magic was ruined forever....
ReplyDeleteOh! I forgot to add that there was a crying baby in the stands just ahead of us. Never bring a baby to a Ballet! For the babies sake AND the people who paid to see this! At least there were people Rude enough to yell "take her OUT!" at the parents. I didn't want to say it, but I'm sure there were LOTS of other people thinking the same thing. Ah memories...
DeleteYou're right about dancers falling hard. I remember a performance of "Swan Lake" in Los Angeles. One of the swans had an incredible fall. She toppled over like a redwood tree and it did ruin the performance.
DeleteBabies and small children should NEVER be allowed at concerts. They were banned from the L.A. Music Center. Another thing that absolutely drives me CRAZY are people in the audience who COUGH through an entire performance. If you're that sick, you should stay home.
DeleteWhile I also have never seen a performance of The Nutcracker, I enjoy the music and it is a timeless piece. It’s a pity the composer never knew the extent of its popularity.
ReplyDeleteThe music is magical and perfectly captures the essence of Christmas and a winter wonderland. There are numerous full-length videos of "The Nutcracker" on YouTube. Some of them are awful and others are good. Finding the good ones is kind of like playing Russian Roulette.....(*smile*).
DeleteI remember when I was in elementary school, we were bused into Reading, PA to the Rajah Theatre to see "The Nutcracker." I do not remember much more than that except I thought that it as really cool! :)
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing that the school went through all that "trouble" so you kids could experience seeing a live ballet. That is pretty cool.
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